Dr Sara Barker

@sarakbarker.bsky.social

8288 Followers 1738 Following

Historian of early modern print, news, translation, pamphlets. Scotland/Yorkshire hybrid. Likes old printed things, France, rugby, embroidery. Always stops to talk to cats and dogs. Series editor MUP Studies in Early Modern European History. She/her.

Screenshot of Spotify transcription for an episode of The Rest is Entertainment, which says "Sarah Baker has a question for you, Marina"
Screenshot of IMDB cast list, which includes John Adams, Martha Washington, Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Abigail Adams from "archive footage"
Two cats sitting on a wooden chest of drawers with various items on top of it. The tabby is in the background and the black cat is in the foreground, and they are both plotting evil deeds. On the wall above them are a display of necklaces and a display of brooches.
Flyer for a talk entitled "Teaching and Researching Old (French) Books in a Digital Age", including a black and white picture of a thick volume, and a small headshot of a white woman with short brown hair
Sign for a teaching session in the John Bedford Room, led by me. The sign includes a printers fist
Top of a small bottle of milk with two sets of smudged letters in red ink
Black jumper with wording "Paris Le Marais Jardins des Archives Nationales" written on it in white cursive script
A note on my office door which explains that I have ADHD and so I work with the door open because that stops me faffing about, but doesn't mean I'm always free to chat, so to please check before speaking to me
A black cat partly lying across Catherine Fletcher's "The Roads ro Rome", open at the title page
A tabby cat standing on top of printed pages on a desk
A photo of a desk that I am sitting at with an open laptop and part of a notebook showing, and some other items partially visible. A tabby cat is sitting on my knee and a black cat is standing on the desk next to the laptop, looking out of the window.
Boothham bar at night- a large medieval stone gate with a road in front of it
A small umbrella held in a gloved hand by a wet road. The umbrella is in a turquoise cover, with British Library in white capital letters down it.
A reading room in the British Library, with high white ceilings and lots of wooden desks with dark writing surfaces
A pink wall with the words Marie Antoinette Style written in a deeper pink, using a rather fancy type
The front of Heslington Hall, a red brick ornate building with a crest at the top of the central part
Interior of coffee shop tables in a modern university building, including dividers made up of plants
A Google search for "Gilles Garnier" who is described as "French serial killer" with most of the text links to the early modern Gilles, who was accused of cannibalism and being a werewolf, but there's also a very modern photograph of a man in a smart jacket and shirt at some kind of official event with a background showing a logo
A notebook made from a worn hardback cover of Pollard's Henry VIII, on a bookshop shelf
A digitised version of a C16 pamplet in French, on the Gallica platform, where the title page lettering is very very smudged
Photo of a computer screen showing the launch screen for a training programme called "Manual Handling (Clean version)". There is a background picture of people in hi-vis carrying boxes
Photo of an email inviting me to take part in a survey for Key Travel
Three badges from the Royal Historical Society - a blue one that says "Trust me, I'm a historian", an orange one that says "This is what a historian looks like", and a deep red one that says "I know the value of history"
A blue and white poster saying "there is nothing more ephemeral than a website" in a white frame, hung on a green wall
A completed jigsaw map of Paris with one piece missing. It's around Alésia, if you're interested.
Image from the Society of Authors saying #DoTheWriteThing and protect authors' livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in AI training. The image is on a turquoise background and includes cartoon images of protestors
A table in a coffee shop with a mug of matcha latte and a copy of Natalie Zemon Davis's Society and Culture in Early Modern France
Three books on a wooden table - the Rough Guide to Istanbul, Alan Mikhail's "God's Shadow: The Ottoman Sultan who shaped the modern world" and Christopher de Bellaigue's "The Lion House: The Rise of Suleyman the Magnificent"
A small tabby cat and a small black cat curled up next to each other in a beige cat bed. There is a second empty cat bed next to them.
Screenshot of a Merriam-webster post with a playable gif of words, suggesting that whatever word your screenshot lands on will be your word of 2025. The word, which is in black type on a white background, that i landed on is "Smackdown".
A tabby cat lying in front of and partly on top of a black cat on grey blanket on a sofa. There are some multi coloured cushions behind them, and a book to the side of them.
The cover of Katherine May's "Wintering"
The cover of David Gange's " The Frayed Atlantic Edge" , which shows a woodcut effect cliff, beach and sea scene
The front cover of Nan Shepherd's "The Living Mountain"
Photo of a long gallery library with Christmas lights and a red carpet
The front cover of "Q" by Luther Blisset, showing a skeletal figure holding a violin within a capital letter Q
The front cover of "Alone in Berlin" by Hans Fallada, showing a blue toned image of a man in a hat walking through a formal park with a large classical building in the background
The cover of Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful which shows a painting of a woman's face with brown eyes and dark hair
The cover of Rebecca Solnit's "Wanderlust: A history of walking", which shows a black and white photograph of shadows of pedestrians on a pavement
Picture of office bookshelves with various French history BD books, mainly about the French Wars of Religion, facing out into the room
The cover of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, showing a shadowy figure in a cape and hat against an old wall
The cover of Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles"
A small artifical Christmas tree with multi coloured lights and small wooden snow flake decorations in white and black. The tree is on top of a small white bookcase and below and beside other book shelves, all of which are cluttered. There are various items alongside the tree, including a miniature printing press and a rubber duck
The cover of "Big Friendship" by Ann Friedman & Aminatou Sow, which is a Venn diagram of red and purple circles with blue overlap, on a bright yellow background
A small tabby cat sticking her head through the balusters of a staircase so that she can chew some knitted mini red and white jumper bunting
The cover of Samantha Harvey's The Western Wind, which shows a woodcut type scene of a tree in a storm, next to some water, with a church and a small figure in red
The cover of The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson, which shows silhouette figures of a devil and a man in a hat standing between two trees
The cover of "Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain" by Amy Jeffs
An artificial Christmas tree with no decorations on it lying on its side across a wooden floor
The cover of Emma Dabiri's "Don't touch my hair"
The cover of Poorna Bell's Stronger: Changing everything I knew about women's strength
Front cover of the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
A slightly blurry photo of a small tabby cat sitting on my knee looking at a just started embroidery hoop
A small tabby cat biting the lower branches of an undecorated artificial Christmas tree
The cover of Common People by Alison Light
Picture taken from in a crowd looking at a woman with pink hair, a dark coat and pink trousers holding a microphone
The cover of Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine - the cover is bright yellow with red lettering, and partial portraits of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford
The cover of Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, which shows a black and white photo of a woman about to walk behind a brick wall, and which has several jacket quotes about the book
Cover of "When The Dust Settles: Searching for Hope After Disaster" by Lucy Easthope
A tabby cat and a black cat lying on top of a peacock feather patterned duvet and a turquoise throw.